Now, I would like to make some other comments before we move on. I would like to talk a little bit about “love.”

Many readers seem to have grossly misunderstood the Cassiopaean remarks about love, mainly because they don’t play the game of exciting your “feel good” brain chemicals with their words. They have said, “real love is not strictly hormonal”. I subsequently remarked:

September 2, 1995

Q: (L) There are many teachings that are promulgated that love is the key, the answer. They say that illumination and knowledge and whatnot can all be achieved through love.
A: The problem is not the term “love,” the problem is the interpretation of the term. Those on third density have a tendency to confuse the issue horribly. After all, they confuse many things as love. When the actual definition of love as you know it is not correct either. It is not necessarily a feeling that one has that can also be interpreted as an emotion, but rather, as we have told you before, the essence of light which is knowledge is love, and this has been corrupted when it is said that love leads to illumination. Love is Light is Knowledge. Love makes no sense when common definitions are used as they are in your environment. To love you must know. And to know is to have light. And to have light is to love. And to have knowledge is to love.

Now, please stop and ponder these words carefully.

When the Cassiopaeans use the term knowledge, they are using it in the deepest sense of the word. To have facts, to be able to remember things, or to relate things to one another, or to creatively utilize what one remembers or relates, has absolutely nothing to do with knowledge in the Cassiopaean sense of the word. They have asked us to consider this word carefully, asking:

October 22, 1994

A: Where is there any limitation in the concept behind the word “knowledge”? Being that there is no limitation, what is the value of that word? Infinite. Can you conceive of how that one concept, that one meaning frees you from all limitation? Use your sixth sense to conceive of how the word, the term, the meaning of knowledge can provide you with all that you could possibly ever need. If you think carefully you will begin to see glimpses of how this is true in its greatest possible form.

… Can you think of how it would be that simply with one term, this one word can carry so much meaning? We sense that you are not completely aware. You can have glimpses of illumination and illumination comes from knowledge. If you strive perpetually to gain and gather knowledge, you provide yourself with protection from every possible negative occurrence that could ever happen. Do you know why this is? The more knowledge you have, the more awareness you have as to how to protect yourself. Eventually this awareness becomes so powerful and so all encompassing that you do not even have to perform tasks or rituals, if you prefer, to protect yourself. The protection simply comes naturally with the awareness.

… Knowledge has all substance. It goes to the core of all existence. … It includes adding everything to one’s being that is desirable. And also, when you keep invoking the light, as you do, truly understand that the light is knowledge. That is the knowledge which is at the core of all existence. And being at the core of all existence it provides protection from every form of negativity in existence. Light is everything and everything is knowledge and knowledge is everything. … If you simply have faith [in the concept of seeking knowledge], no knowledge that you could possibly acquire could possibly be false because there is no such thing.

That is, knowledge, by the Cassiopaean definition, is not false. Facts that later prove to be false, were never knowledge to begin with, even if they were erroneously counted as “knowledge.”

Anyone or anything that tries to give you false knowledge, false information, will fail. The very material substance that the knowledge takes on, since it is at the root of all existence, will protect you from absorption of false information, which is not knowledge.

This suggests that each level of knowledge that we acquire prepares us for the next level, and the next, and so on. Those who seek to know things that they have no preparation to receive are subject to obfuscation. There is no need to fear the absorption of false information when you are simply openly seeking to acquire knowledge.

This last remark is crucial: “when you are simply openly seeking to acquire knowledge.” I know that everyone who is seeking thinks that they are open, but if you carefully examine your thoughts, you will discover that you have a lot of beliefs and assumptions that you expect your seeking to confirm. The following comments elaborate on this:

October 22, 1994

A: And knowledge forms the protection – all the protection you could ever need. … [People who claim to be receiving knowledge by faith who later find that they have received false information] … are not really gathering knowledge. These people are stuck at some point in their pathway to progress and they are undergoing a hidden manifestation of what is referred to in your terms as obsession. Obsession is not knowledge, obsession is stagnation. So, when one becomes obsessed, one actually closes off the absorption and the growth and the progress of soul development which comes with the gaining of true knowledge. For when one becomes obsessed one deteriorates the protection therefore one is open to problems, to tragedies, to all sorts of difficulties. Therefore one experiences same.

Taking this key literally, if a person has problems or feels attacked or is suffering in any way, they have only to search their own mind to discover that they are holding on to a belief or an assumption that is an obsession. I have found this to be true in my own life, as well as the lives of others. If there are problems, illness, difficulties of all kinds, then one is obsessed in some way with a false belief. No exceptions.

The third density application of knowledge is, of course, awareness. And the Cassiopaeans have commented on this as well:

September 2, 1995

As we have told you, there are seven levels of density which involves, among other things, not only state of being physically, spiritually and etherically, and materially, but also, more importantly, state of awareness. You see, state of awareness is the key element to all existence in creation. You have undoubtedly remembered that we have told you that this is, after all, a grand illusion, have you not? So, therefore, if it is a grand illusion, what is more important, physical structure or state of awareness???

… Now, when we go from the measuring system, which of course has been nicely formulated so that you can understand it, of density levels one through seven, the key concept, of course, is state of awareness. All the way through. So, once you rise to a higher state of awareness, such things as physical limitation evaporate. And, when they evaporate, vast distances, as you perceive them, become nonexistent. So, just because you are unable to see and understand has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what is or is not possible. Except within your own level of density. And this is what almost no one on your current level of density is able to understand. If you can understand it and convey it to them, you will be performing the greatest service that your kind has ever seen. Think about that for a moment. Let it seep into your consciousness. Analyze it. Dissect it. Look at it carefully and then put it back together again.
Q: (L) What is it that limits our awareness?
A: Your environment. And it is the environment that you have chosen. By your level of progress. And that is what limits everything. As you rise to higher levels of density, limitations are removed.
Q: (L) What creates this environment of limitation?
A: It is the grand illusion which is there for the purpose of learning.

Now, let’s stop right here and consider this a moment. A recent post to one of our e-groups stated:

If you’ve been duped into believing that there is anything in life more important and powerful than love then you had best get back to basics. It is the fabric of everything and it is never wrong. Granted, for many love is not really love but more about attachment and control, but if you go through this life without learning what love really is and how to become an instrument for it to flow through then you have sold yourself way short! … Until you love yourself with every fiber of your being you will never be able to love another and you will never be capable of serving anything or anyone but your illusion of your self.

Know yourself … Realize yourself! And then you will have something of value to offer. “Love is Light is Knowledge”? I suppose you could get away with saying it like that but a much more accurate statement would be. From love comes light, comes knowledge. See the difference?

This writer has just said that learning what love really is and learning how to become an instrument for love is the object of existence. He then follows with “know yourself,” (which you must do in order to love yourself), and that this knowing of self is equal to realizing the self. And then he turns everything he has just said completely around and says that you start with love in order to progress to light, which leads to knowledge. I don’t think he was even aware that his passionate declaration about learning and knowing and realizing was exactly what the Cassiopaeans said, as quoted below: “To love you must know. And to know is to have light. And to have light is to love. And to have knowledge is to love.”

He spent some time in commentary on the Cassiopaean remarks about sex, without realizing that he was describing one part of the elephant. Just as the Cassiopaean comments on love have been twisted and misunderstood, so have the remarks about sex. Suffice it to say that making love, as I have already intimated in this series, is different from having sex. And just as a lot of people think they are in love, or being loving when in fact they are not, a lot of people think they are making love and they are not. As the writer above commented, this process the Cassiopaeans advocate has to do with “learning what love really is and how to become an instrument for it to flow through [you.]” And, he is absolutely correct that you must “know yourself … Realize yourself! And then you will have something of value to offer.”

And that is what it’s all about. As the Cassiopaeans have said:

September 2, 1995

Q: (L) And who put the illusion into place?
A: The Creator who is also the Created. Which is also you and us and all. As we have told you, we are you and vice versa. And so is everything else.
Q: (L) Is the key that it is all illusion?
A: Basically, yes. As we have told you before, if you will be patient just a moment, the universe is merely a school. And, a school is there for all to learn. That is why everything exists. There is no other reason. Now, if only you understood the true depth of that statement, you would begin to start to see, and experience for yourself, all the levels of density that it is possible to experience, all the dimensions that it is possible to experience, all awareness. When an individual understands that statement to its greatest possible depth, that individual becomes illumined. And, certainly you have heard of that. And, for one moment, which lasts for all eternity, that individual knows absolutely everything that there is to know.
Q: (L) So, you are saying that the path to illumination is knowledge and not love?
A: That is correct.
Q: (L) Is it also correct that emotion can be used to mislead, that is emotions that are twisted and generated strictly from the flesh or false programming?
A: Emotion that limits is an impediment to progress. Emotion is also necessary to make progress in 3rd density. It is natural. When you begin to separate limiting emotions based on assumptions from emotions that open one to unlimited possibilities, that means you are preparing for the next density.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. It’s a seemingly simple statement, but it’s loaded with all sorts of explosive questions and ideas that have often led to, historically speaking, mayhem, murder and mass destruction. The problem seems to lie with differing definitions of what is or is not to be known, how to know it, and why.

The word know is derived from the Latin root gnoscere, which is “to know, have a clear perception or understanding of, be sure of or well informed about.”

But truth is more difficult. It is actually derived from the same root as tree, and the problems immediately become apparent with this word. The first definition is “that which accords with reality or fact.” But, it can also mean a “particular belief or teaching regarded by the speaker as the true one.” And some trees are sturdier than others!

The problem with the first definition is related to our definitions of reality. And what is a fact? It seems that facts about our world change from one generation to the next. Many years ago it was a fact that it took weeks to cross the Atlantic by the fastest means; now it only takes hours. So it could be said that facts define our reality. But facts are not reality nor are they absolute. It seems that facts are based on knowledge, and knowledge seems to be predicated on what kinds of questions are being asked and how open the seeker is to receive answers.

Yet we come back to the statement, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Those who think that truth is what is believed or taught by their particular religion or philosophy fail to note that the vast number of differing and often opposing beliefs suggest that either everybody is right, some are right, or there is something about this reality-making business we need to learn.

The Cassiopaeans have essentially said that there is no limit to knowledge, which suggests that all that can be conceived by the human mind, and even more, is not only possible, but probable. Nevertheless, we come back to that small problem that we are dealing with here: we happen to be on this planet, swinging through space like a seat on a Tilt-a-Whirl, perched upon the arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and whether we like it or not there are many of the people on said planet suffering mightily in ways too numerous to mention. I don’t know about you, but that bugs me. And when something bugs me, my natural inclination is to find out what it is and why it is bugging me. And once I find out something about it, I do something. Can’t help it, I’m a doer.

There are thousands upon thousands of people who advocate different views of what the answers to life’s problems are. They operate much as the previously quoted writer who presents a logical series for the case, establishing knowledge as the basis of the answer, and then confounds his premise by reversing his conclusion based on an emotional belief rather than the highly developed cognition process of which he is obviously capable. This is why their answers do not seem to be leading to any active pursuit of specific measures that might serve to ameliorate the problem, much less lead to a universe changing solution. If they were clear and coherent in their own souls and minds, the result of this would be action. They would become doers, too.

Going back to complex systems, remember the idea that, by using nonlinear models, it is even possible to locate potential critical pressure points in such systems. At these critical points, which probably relate to what Gurdjieff called “semitones” or “stopinders” in Law of Octaves, a small change can have a tremendous impact.

It’s now. It’s here. It’s happening.

Because it so happens that, at this particular point in history in this particular reality, there are these communicants from somewhere who call themselves the Cassiopaeans, who just happened to arrive on the scene after a lifetime of searching for the way back to God by yours truly.

And, as it happens, yours truly, like many others, possesses certain inner characteristics that include a powerful will and drive to serve others without violating their free will. She also speed reads, has a near photographic memory and picked up the skill of typing fairly rapidly along the way. Sounds pretty much like the ideal person for said beings to contact, right? If you want to get the message out, hook up with a walking-encyclopedia-workaholic-blabbermouth. And they did.

At the same time that this was happening, a world-class physicist of similar characteristics was searching the globe for the same answers in a different yet complementary mode. So, at this particular moment in history, scientist and walking-encyclopedia-workaholic-blabbermouth meet. They find extraordinary similarity of being, from their respective internal drives right down to skin tone and eye color. It is almost as if they are two halves of the same being.

Not only that, but she is quite taken with the idea of metamorphosis of Earth and he knows the intricacies of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems. She is looking for the spiritual ark and he is Ark. He is looking for the essence of existence, the aether, and she is L’aura, or the air. He’s in Florence; she’s in Florida. He’s working on gravity waves; she’s looking for explanations of gravity waves. He decides to create a webpage with an image of Magritte’s Le Chateau des Pyrenees; and she is looking for secret masters in the Pyrenees, led on by a painting of Arcadian Shepherds, urged by said Cassiopaeans who tell her that her life will change suddenly and dramatically once she gets hooked up to the Internet. And his full name is Arkadiusz.

Can those guys get any funnier?

And what is even more important, both of these individuals are constitutionally incapable of taking anybody’s word for anything. And if they don’t like the way something is, they find out why, and then do something about it. In a nonlinear way.

And we come back to why the Cassiopaeans tell such awful things about our reality to us. Why would they teach us that there are horrors we don’t even want to contemplate, existing not only in our world, but also at levels we can’t even perceive? Never mind that they are probably true, they are scary! Why are they scaring us?

Remember the jaguar? When you encounter the jaguar, your life changes forever.

And remember the most important element: they are telling these things to people who are thinkers and, more importantly doers. Of all the many people on the planet with ideas about how to find the way out of the maze, many of them standing in criticism of what we are doing here, how many of them are doing anything about what they think will make a difference? How many of them are acting as local debugging units with knowledge of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems?

How many of them are spending ten or more hours a day gathering material and writing and producing something that might help, even if it may not be perfect or even the right answer? How many of them are working to produce a nonlinear change in this complex system of our individual and collective realities? We already know that the present reality isn’t the one we want. We can already figure out, if we have one neuron in contact with another, that the old religions and philosophical systems don’t work because they have been tried with little or no success for thousands of years. How many of these obsessed critics are building up out of a sense of hope and – dare I say it – even faith in themselves?

I would like to see every single individual who spends a single moment of time and energy attacking what we are doing here, take that exact amount of time each day and create your own website where you can give your information away too. Please put your money where your mouth is, and spend $10,000 a year on books and journals, computers and Internet access, as we do, so as to be informed about the things that may actually help others. And then, inform them! But don’t try to violate my free will to do it the way I see fit. You have your faith, now show me your work.

So we find ourselves at that point on the jagged edge of the two crustal plates where there is a moment of critical energy influx, and we know that there is going to be an explosion. And the results are unpredictable.

Now, let’s go back to this idea that seeking knowledge is the seeking of truth.

We do have a small key to this problem: the idea of being free. If it is truth, it will set one free.

But, what is it to be free? This word is derived from the Indo-European base prie, which means “to be fond of, to hold dear.” It is related to the Sanskrit priya, or desired. It is from the same root that we get friend.

So, we might think that to be free means that we are full of friendliness and loving kindness and holding all we behold and experience as dear. To be free means that no power can take these feelings from us, that we have reached a level of knowing that is open and accepting of all we know. And that by knowing, we are capable of loving without conditions.

The idea of friend being related to freedom and knowledge is found in many ancient teachings. Sufi masters are called the “Friends of God.” So we might think that to be free is to be a friend of God. But, the most important thing about a friend is that it is someone you know by virtue of being open to and accepting of without limitations. So, we have come around in a circle. And we might say that the thing that we need to know in order to be free is God.

The apostle, Paul wrote, “For that which is known about God is evident … his nature and attributes … have been made clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made …” (Romans 1:19–20).

Which clearly indicates that study of the world and all within it is a pathway to God available to all. This is also a precise statement that all that exists is God, and therefore worth knowing and being open to without conditions. Paul further comments on those who substitute beliefs, “vain imaginings, foolish reasoning and stupid speculations,” for true knowledge of God that can be obtained through study and observation of creation. He remarks that such people do not “see fit to consider Him worth the knowing.” And we find ourselves facing the idea that refusing to learn, refusing to gather knowledge, to learn, to grow, is equivalent to refusing God! Paul remarks, “in posing as judge and passing sentence on another you condemn yourself.” And what is it to judge and pass sentence? To limit one’s openness to knowledge, to ask questions with pre-formed opinions, assumptions and answers.

These seed ideas are more clearly explicated in the Sufi teachings of Ibn al-‘Arabî. There we find exactly what Paul has said in the first chapter of Romans, which can be reduced to the idea that everything that exists, by the fact of existing, manifests something of the divine presence, which by definition embraces all that exists. Therefore, God can be found everywhere, in everything, and all knowledge is knowledge of God.

Understanding the principles of creation tells us that the dynamic activity “to know” is expressed in creation by the desire of God to know Himself through creation. As the Sufis say, God was alone and desired a friend to love and be loved by. And from this desire, Creation came into being. Therefore, any limitation or assumption we make about the cosmos and all within it is a limitation placed upon God.

In the Sufi texts, finding is identical to consciousness and self-awareness, or with knowledge. Knowledge is a great bounty to be gathered, but it is obvious that everyone cannot have it equally. This is clearly described in the Parable of the Talents. In this story, Jesus describes knowledge as “riches” given to three servants. Two of the servants utilize their talents, or riches, to obtain even more. In fact, the exact description is that they invest, or take a risk by giving up what they have been given to multiply it. And the servant who clings desperately to his little bit of knowledge or riches, burying it in the ground from fear that his master is hard and demanding, loses even the little that he has. He closed his mind to more knowledge. He assumed that what he had was sufficient and stopped seeking. He denied himself by denying knowledge.

It may seem unfair, but the point is obvious that letting go of fear and wanting more knowledge to the extent of taking risks and working to get it, even if one must temporarily give up one level to gain another, is the key to being a friend of God. God wants Friends, not groveling, fearful slaves. And how can God have friends with whom he can communicate if they have no knowledge?

According to Ibn al-‘Arabî’s revelation, God says, “I was a Hidden Treasure, and I Loved to be known …” Which tells us that the love of God is love for the sake of knowledge. To know and be known. True love is love with knowledge. Without knowledge love loses its direction. It becomes diversified, split, a wasteland, like water losing itself in the desert. The love of the Sufi is directed toward God. And this is only possible with knowledge of Him.

So, we might think that one of the objectives of obtaining knowledge is to know how to be a friend of God. And here is where so many stumble and fall into assumptions. Every attribute or quality that we find in the cosmos must be an attribute or quality of God. The Sufis call this the “Names of God.” And God has many names. Each name denotes a pair of opposites. God the Merciful can be known through Forgiveness and God the Wrathful is known through Vengeance. And these are just two examples. The variety of relationships that can be discerned in God is the reason, the primary cause, of the multiplicity of relationships in the cosmos. All things are manifestations and effects of the divine names or attributes in myriad combinations. God has many faces, not all of them pleasant to behold.

All beings are, in one way or another, seeking God. And the manner in which we seek determines the type of friendship we have. God is a friend to us in the same way we are a friend to the cosmos. The importance of this statement cannot be overestimated. It is only through knowledge of the meanings behind our experiences and the material world that we can truly discern and divide the essential attributes of any given manifestation so that we can exercise our free will in the direction of those who are known as the “Beautiful Faces of God.” These are the archetypes, or points of focus on the Wave.

How does one obtain truth? How does one cast off the illusions? How does one differentiate between knowledge of light and knowledge that leads to darkness?

This comes from a combination of factors. The first is gaining and gathering knowledge of every form and sort. All sciences and arts are of value in increasing knowledge if they are approached with the intention of preparing a vessel for divine knowledge. For, in truth, all knowledge is divine. The more knowledge you have of the matters of your world, the greater the vessel you have prepared for receiving divine knowledge.

The word that is a stumbling block in many ways for many people comes in here: faith. But is faith, after all, so difficult? It is, in a pure sense, feeling secure in your knowledge by virtue of experience and testing.

But, how can you experience and test faith if you have no knowledge with which to experience and test faith? If your faith is small, you must establish it through knowledge. If you were given proof and the proof gave you faith, then everyone would have faith and then the virtue of faith, which is the building and brightening of the light within through knowledge combined with faith would have no value in moving you further along the upward path. Faith is self-evident knowledge of the inner light. It is light that grows within through effort to know truth and God by acquiring knowledge.

And it all begins by asking without belief, yet with absolute openness to receive an answer. Because, in the end, this openness of seeking without assumption or pre-formed answers is the essence of faith.

And, it seems that the asking or not asking of these questions establishes the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness. Of course, there are those who claim to ask, but really do not; they already have their answer formed by a belief system that has taken up residence in their minds. But those who ask, who really ask, are faced with moment-by-moment decisions, choices they must make to navigate the labyrinth, hoping that those choices will take them either to the center or the exit, depending upon their direction. Thus, if one asks with a completely open mind and heart, each moment they are open is a moment that they are conscious. Those who do not ask are unconscious; they exist in a state of fear.

Therefore, a practical plan, a mode of perception is needed by which we can understand the answers to our questions; each of us, individually, without giving our power away to some other external, dominating religion or philosophy. We need to learn to interact directly with the cosmos in a personal way. Because it is only in direct interaction with this creative force of existence that we truly are our authentic selves. When we are navigating the maze under our own power, by our own choices, we are experiencing true freedom of being. We are able to see that one way does not achieve our destination, and we are free to turn around and try another. We are not forced to march in place, against a brick wall, not knowing that we are getting nowhere because we have allowed ourselves to be blindfolded by faith in some external source of power, be it material or philosophical or religious. We are free to be.

How?

We come back to learning. We are here to learn. If just finding the exact shade and tone of love would do it, there really wouldn’t be any point in being here. But, as our correspondent above pointed out, we are here to learn how to love. The only difference is, instead of putting the cart before the horse, leading to failure and frustration in the student, the Cassiopaeans have undertaken to teach us the basics that seem to be sorely lacking in most of the teachings promulgated down through the millennia, perhaps by design. How can we learn the calculus of love, if we cannot do the arithmetic of awareness?

Naturalist and author Diane Ackerman writes:

When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call “white” is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion. It includes many feelings which, out of laziness and confusion, we crowd into one simple word. … Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is. …

Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. … the Sanskrit lubhyati (“he desires”) [is the root of our word love]. … Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days.

We use the word love in such a sloppy way that it can mean almost nothing or absolutely everything. … It is a universally understood motive for crime. “Ah, he was in love,” we sigh, “well, that explains it.” In fact, in some European and South American countries, even murder is forgivable if it was “a crime of passion.” Love, like truth, is the unassailable defense. (Ackerman 1994, xvii, xviii)

What can we say about this thing we call love which has so many effects in our lives, but which we still group together under the same term? One of the most famous writings on the subject of love, is that of the apostle Paul in the thirteenth chapter of his letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers – that is, the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose; and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing – a useless nobody.

Even if I dole out all that I have to give food to the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

It is not conceited – arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude, and does not act unbecomingly. Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it – pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstance and it endures everything without weakening.

Love never fails – never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy, it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will be superseded by truth.

For our knowledge is fragmentary and our prophecy is fragmentary.

But when the complete and perfect comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away – become antiquated, void and superseded.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim reflection of reality as in a riddle or an enigma, but then, when perfection comes, we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part; but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God.

And so, faith, hope, love abide; these three, but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1–13)

As I said, Paul’s discourse on love is one of the most famous and most quoted passages in the literature of love, and it is also one of the most poorly understood!

Why is this so? In the King James Version, the word that is translated above as “love” is given in Elizabethan English as “charity.” So, it was “Faith, Hope and Charity” for hundreds of years. Generations of Christians engaged in acts of charity, believing this to be what was required of them. And this conceptualization of love as charity became inculcated into our consciousness. Why the translators chose charity, over some other available term, I don’t know. But, the root of the word charity is the Indo-European base karo, which means, “to like, desire.” It later became the Gothic term hors, which meant an adulterer.

Anyway, charity was used to express the Greek word agape, which actually means “love feast.” It was described as “a meal that early Christians ate together.” There have been many glosses and later interpretations of this love feast, none of which adequately explain exactly what Paul is talking about here. Clearly he had some idea about something extraordinary that is veiled from us.

So, we can right away get rid of the idea that this essay on love had anything to do with what has been made of it. But still, the standards of love in our society are, essentially, based on this chapter in the New Testament. Take note of this portion in particular: “Even if I dole out all that I have to give food to the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Clearly love is something other than giving to the poor, whether they are poor in fact, or just spirit. There has sure been a lot of giving to the poor and “surrendering of the body to be burned” in the course of Christian history, and most of it done to manipulate and control.

August 28, 1999

Q: For example: there are some people who like to suffer, because they believe that the flesh is sinful. That is a big thing that the Lizzies have instituted. For centuries they have wanted people to suffer, and they have made this big deal about sex and anything that might be considered pleasant or desirable should be denied, and that a person should suffer, and revel in their suffering. And, actually, making a person …
A: If one seeks to suffer, they do so in expectation of future reward. They desire to possess something in the end.

And, of course, in regard to:

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

It is not conceited – arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude, and does not act unbecomingly. Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it – pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

There is sure a lot of behavior modification by those who think that cultivating an external demeanor of humility, patience, kindness, self-sacrifice and so on will get them to heaven. And again we find, “If one seeks to suffer, they do so in expectation of future reward. They desire to possess something in the end.”

Unconditional love. This is touted by religions and philosophies of all kinds, and most especially in the present time by New Age purveyors of wisdom. It is supposed to be the panacea, the solution to all our problems – if we can only love unconditionally, all barriers in our lives will fall aside and we will climb unhindered to the mountaintop of cosmic consciousness!

Paul’s remarks above indicate that all of the qualities we usually associate with unconditional love, such as giving to the poor, surrendering our bodies to be burned, being humble, selfless and so on are nothing without this love he is talking about. So, clearly, those things that we define as love are not love, according to Paul’s definition.

We can make the assertion that he considers doing it on the outside without the true feeling inside to be the problem; but I don’t think it is that simple or that this was what he meant. And we find the answer in the aforementioned remark:

Love never fails ­– never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy, it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease;as for knowledge, it will be superseded by truth.

Here, Paul has said love never fades out or comes to an end. And then he lists those things that do come to an end, and follows this with the remark that knowledge will be superseded by truth. In other words, love and truth are the same thing.

But isn’t knowledge truth? It depends on your definition of the word. Paul says:

For our knowledge is fragmentary and our prophecy is fragmentary. But when the complete and perfect comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away – become antiquated, void and superseded.

Many people interpret this passage to mean that when Jesus comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away. But, in the preceding paragraphs Paul has already told us what is coming: truth. Fragmentary knowledge and fragmentary prophecy will be superseded by truth. So, Paul is talking about completion and perfection of knowledge and prophecy. It should also be noted that the manner in which he uses the term prophecy, indicates a knowledge of the divine will and purpose, so that it is really only another level or type of knowledge. In short, what Paul seems to be describing is the fourth-density state of existence. He says:

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim reflection of reality as in a riddle or an enigma, but then, when perfection comes, we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part; but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God.

First he says that our knowledge of our reality is fragmentary – a dim reflection in a mirror, a riddle, an enigma; and that “when perfection comes,” that is, truth as he has defined above, then and only then can we see “in reality and face to face!” He further amplifies this by saying, “Now I know in part; but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly … as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God.”

So we can see that what Paul is striving to convey to us is that love and truth are the same things, intertwined, inseparable. And this is the definition of knowledge as the Cassiopaeans have explained it: “To love you must know. And to know is to have light [i.e. truth]. And to have light is to love. And to have knowledge is to love.” I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created man in order that I may be known.

Philosopher P.D. Ouspensky wrote:

There is no side of life which does not reveal to us an infinity of the new and the unexpected if we approach it with the knowledge that it is not exhausted by its visible side, that behind this visible side there lies a whole world of the invisible, a whole world of new and incomprehensible forces and relations. The knowledge of the existence of the invisible world is the first key to it. (Ouspensky 1922)

In certain aspects of our lives we come into a more direct contact with this invisible nature of God than in others. Love and death are two of these.

In Hindu mythology, love and death are the two faces of the One. Shiva, the god of the reproductive forces in nature is also the god of violent death, murder and destruction. His wife is Parvati, the goddess of beauty, love and happiness, while also being Kali, the goddess of evil, misfortune, sickness and death. Together, Shiva and Parvati/Kali are gods of wisdom, knowledge, good and evil.

“Love and Death move through this world of ours like things apart – underrunning it truly, and everywhere present, yet seeming to belong to some other mode of existence.” —Carpenter, The Drama of Love and Death, 1912

There have always been those who claim to know or teach philosophies of death – that we die once and are either saved or damned, that we die and are reincarnated, or that we die and become nothing. In fact, it could be said that all religions are just ways of teaching about death.

The problem is love. It is usually accepted by us that love is a given; it is already understood and known. The different systems of religion and philosophy are pretty much the same in their teachings about love. Yet, the fact remains that love is as great a mystery as death!

As Diane Ackerman says:

There are countless studies on war, hate, crime, prejudice, and so on. Social scientists prefer to study negative behaviors and emotions. Perhaps they don’t feel as comfortable studying love per se. I add that ‘per se’ because they are studying love – often they’re studying what happens when love is deficient, thwarted, warped, or absent. (Ackerman 1994, xxii)

But, is that really the case? P. D. Ouspensky writes:

In reality love is a cosmic phenomenon, in which people … are merely accidental; a cosmic phenomenon as little concerned with either the lives or the souls of men as the sun is concerned in shining so that, by its light, men may go about their trivial affairs and use it for their own ends. If men could understand this, be it only with one part of their consciousness, a new world would open up before them and it would become very strange for them to look at life from all the usual angles. They would understand then that love is something quite different, and of a different order from the small events of earthly life.

Perhaps it isa world of special spirits which at times take possession of men, subjugating them, making tools of them for the accomplishment of their own incomprehensible aims. … Perhaps it is the alchemical work of the Great Master, in which the souls and bodies of men play the part of the elements out of which is evolved the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life, or some special electricity, necessary to someone for some mysterious purpose.

… Men strive to subjugate love to themselves, to force it to serve their aims, both spiritual and material. But love cannot be subjugated to anything and it wreaks merciless vengeance on the puny mortals who strive to subjugate God to serve their own ends.

… Mistaken about the origin of love, men are mistaken about its result. … The propagation of species. But this objective result, which may or may not happen, is in any case only the result of the external, objective side of love, or the material fact of impregnation.

… But if we regard love from this standpoint, we shall have to admit that there ismore of this force than is necessary,infinitely more! In reality, for the purposes of the propagation of species only a small fraction of one per cent of this force of love inherent in humanity is utilized.

Where then, does the main part of the force go?

Let us take an ordinary candle. It should give light. But it gives much more heat than light. Light is the direct function of the candle, heat is the indirect function, but there is more heat than light. In order to give light, the candle must burn. Burning is the necessary condition for obtaining light from a candle; burning cannot be done away with. But this same burning produces heat. It seems, at the first glance, that the heat produced by a candle is wasted unproductively and is, at times, even superfluous, unpleasant and hindering: if a room is lit by candles, it becomes too hot. But the fact of the matter is that light is obtained from a candle only owing to its burning – the evolution of heat and the incandescence of the gases evolved.

The same applies to love. We say that only an insignificant part of the energy of love goes to create progeny; the greater part seems to be spent by fathers and mothers on their personal emotions.

In springtime, with the first awakening of the emotions of love, birds begin to sing and to build nests. Naturally, a materialist will say that the singing is to attract the females or the males and so on. But even a materialist will not be able to deny that there is much more of this singing than is necessary for the propagation of the species. For the materialist, the singing is only accidental, only a byproduct. But, in reality, the singing may be the main function of the given species, the meaning of its existence, the purpose which nature had in view in creating this species. And this singing is needed not to attract the females, but for some general harmony of nature we only sometimes vaguely feel.

Thus, we see that what appears to be a collateral function of love, from the point of view of the individual, may serve as a principal function of the species.

Love has evoked a thirst for activity. Instinct governs this thirst for activity … at the first awakening of love –work starts.

We see the same thing in men. Love is a creative force. And the creative force of love manifests itself not in one but in many varied directions. Perhaps it is precisely by this force of love, Eros, that mankind is incited to fulfill its main function: all the creative activity of mankind is the outcome of love.

If creation, the birth of ideas, is the light which comes from love, then this light comes from a great flame.In this everlasting flame, in which all mankind and the whole of the world are burning, all the forces of the human spirit and genius are developed and refined; and perhaps it is precisely from this flame, or with the help of it, that a new force will spring into being which will lead those who follow it away from the shackles of matter.

I have dwelt so long on the question of the understanding of love because it is of the most vital importance; for the majority of people approaching the threshold of the mystery, it is precisely from this side that much becomes opened or closed and because for many precisely this question constitutes the greatest obstacle.

The most important thing in love is that which is not, which is completely nonexistent from an ordinary, everyday, materialistic point of view. In this sensing of that which is not, in the contact thus reached with the world of the miraculous, i.e. the truly real, lies the principal meaning of love in human life.

… All life by all its facts, events and accidents, agitations and attractions always leads us to the knowledge of something. The strongest emotion in man is a yearning for the unknown. Even in love, the strongest attraction to which everything else is sacrificed, is the attraction of the unknown, the new ­– curiosity.

… Man realizes his existence and the existence of the world of which he is a part. His relation to himself and to the world is called knowledge. The broadening and deepening of the relation to oneself and the world is a broadening of knowledge.

All the mental faculties of man, all the elements of his inner life – sensations, representations, concepts, ideas, judgments, conclusions, feelings, emotions, even creation – all these are the instruments of knowledge which we possess.

… Evolutionists will say that the struggle for existence and the selection of the fittest have created the mind and feeling of the modern man – that mind and feeling serve life, protect the species, and apart from this, can have no meaning.

The opposing argument is that, if intelligence exists, then nothing exists except for intelligence. The struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest, if they in truth play such a role in the creation of life, are also not accidents, but products of an intelligence we do not know. And, like everything else, they serve knowledge.

But we do not, as a rule, see the presence of intelligence in the phenomena and laws of nature. This happens because we always study the parts and not the whole. By studying the little finger of a man, we cannot know the intelligence of the man. We always study the little finger of nature. If we realize this and understand that every life is the manifestation of a part of some whole, only then a possibility opens of knowing that whole.

Every separate human life is a moment of the life of the great being which lives in us. The intelligences of these higher beings do not exist independently of the lower lives. They are two sides of one and the same thing. Each single human mind, in some other section of the world may produce the illusion of many lives.

Life and mind seem to us different and separate from one another because we do not know how to look, how to see. And this in its turn is due to the fact that it is very hard for us to get out of the framework of our divisions. We see the life of a tree, this tree. And if we are told that the life of the tree is a manifestation of some mind, we understand it to mean that the life of this tree is a manifestation of the mind of this tree.

This, of course, is an absurdity resulting from our three-dimensional thinking, the Euclidean mind. The life of this tree is a manifestation of the mind of the species or the variety, or perhaps, of the intelligence of the whole vegetable kingdom.

In the same way our individual lives are the manifestations of some great intelligence. Proof of this is found in the fact that our lives have no meaning whatsoever apart from the process of acquiring knowledge. And a thoughtful man ceases to feel painfully the absence of meaning in life only when he realizes this and begins to strive consciously in the direction he was unconsciously following before.

Moreover, this acquisition of knowledge, which constitutes our function in the world, is achieved not only by our intellect, but by our whole organism, all our body, all our life and the whole life of the human society, by its organizations, institutions, the whole culture and the whole civilization, by all we know in humankind and even more so by what we do not know. And we get to know that which we deserve to know.

If we say about the intellectual side of man that its purpose is the acquisition of knowledge, this will not evoke any doubt. All are agreed that man’s intellect, with all its subordinate functions, exists for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, although very often the faculty of knowledge is regarded as subordinate. But as regards the emotions: joy, sorrow, anger, fear, love, hate, pride, compassion, jealousy, as regards the sense of beauty, aesthetic sense and artistic creation, as regards moral sense, as regards all religious emotions, faith, hope, veneration and so on, as regards all human activity, things are not so clear. As a rule, we do not see that all emotions and all human activity serve knowledge.

Usually the emotional is opposed to theintellectual: “heart” is opposed to “reason.” Cold reason or intellect is placed on one side, and on the other side: feelings, emotions, artistic sense; then, again quite separately, moral sense, religious feeling, ‘spirituality.’

The misunderstanding here lies in the interpretation of the words intellect and emotion.

Spirituality is not something opposed to “intellectuality” or “emotionality.” It is only their higher flight. Reason has no bounds.

… In a man the growth of reason consists in the growth of the intellect and in the accompanying growth of higher emotions: aesthetic, religious, moral – which, as they grow, become more and more intellectualized; moreover, simultaneously with this the intellect becomes impregnated with emotionality and ceases to be “cold.” Thus, “spirituality” is the merging together of the intellect and the higher emotions; the emotions are spiritualized from the intellect.

… Theoretically all emotions serve knowledge; all emotions arise as a consequence of the cognition of one or another thing. … Undoubtedly there are relations which can be known only through fear. A man who has never experienced fear will never understand many things in life and in nature.

The sign of the growth of emotions is their liberation from the personal element and their transition to higher planes. The liberation from personal elements enhances the cognitive power of emotions, becausethe more personal elements there are in an emotion, the more capable it is of leading into delusion. A personal emotion is always biased, always unfair, if only for the reason that it opposes itself to everything else.

Thus the problem of right emotional knowledge is to feel in relation to people and the world from a point of view other than the personal. And the wider the circle for which a given person feels, the deeper the knowledge which his emotions give.

Christ driving the moneychangers out of the temple or expressing his opinion of the Pharisees was not at all meek or mild. And there are cases where meekness and mildness are not a virtue at all. Emotions of love, sympathy, pity are very easily transformed into sentimentality, into weakness. And in this form they naturally serve only absence of knowledge, i.e. matter.

There exists a division of emotions into pure and impure. We all know this, we all use these words, but we understand very little what this means.

Ordinary morality divides emotions, a priori, into pure and impure according to external traits. All carnal desires are relegated into the category of the impure. However, carnal desires are as pure as everything else in nature.

An impure emotion is exactly the same as a dirty glass, dirty water or an impure sound. An emotion which is not pure contains foreign matter or echoes of other emotions. It is mixed. A pure emotion gives a clear, pure image of the knowledge which it is intended to transmit.

If we discard the usual moral framework, we shall see that the matter is much more simple, that there are no emotions impure in their nature.

There may be pure sensuality, the sensuality of the “Song of Songs,” which passes into the sensation of cosmic life and enables one to hear the beating pulse of nature. And there may be impure sensuality, mixed with other emotions, good or bad from the moral point of view, but equally making sensuality turbid. There is sensuality with anger that causes pain; there is sensuality with guilt that seeks pain.

There may be pure sympathy ­– and there may be sympathy mixed with calculation to receive something for one’s sympathy. There may be pure desire to know, a thirst for knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and there may be a pursuit of knowledge led by considerations of profit and gain.

In their external manifestations pure and impure emotions may differ very little. Two men may play chess and be quite alike in their outward behaviour, but one may be driven by ambition, desire of victory, and he will be full of unpleasant feelings towards his opponent – apprehension, envy of a clever move, vexation, jealousy, animosity, or anticipation of his winnings; but another may simply try to solve the complicated mathematical problems before him, without giving a thought to his opponent.

Examples of such a division of outwardly similar emotions may be constantly seen in artistic, literary, scientific, social and even in spiritual and religious activities of men. In all domains, only complete victory over the self-element leads man to a right knowledge of the world and himself. All emotions coloured by the self-element are like concave, convex or distorting glasses which refract the rays incorrectly and so distort the image of the world.

Thus the problem of emotional knowledge consists in a corresponding preparation of the emotions which serve as instruments of knowledge.

“Become as little children … ” and “Blessed are the pure in heart … ” These words speak about the purification of emotions. It is impossible to know rightly through impure emotions. Therefore, in the interests of a right knowledge of the world and oneself, the work of purification and elevation of emotions should go on in man.

There are emotions through which we gain knowledge, and there are emotions by which we are led astray. (Ouspensky 1922)

All of these things discussed by Ouspensky are the very things we are trying to clarify in our study of the biophysical basis of emotions. Emotions that are programmed are impure, as he terms it. The self element is highly invested in these emotions, and they are for the most part the unconscious controllers of our behavior. What we are trying to do here is establish a basis for the overcoming of the Predator’s controlling mind, and the experiential establishment of the higher emotions of the soul. As Ouspensky says above, “Spirituality is not something opposed to ‘intellectuality’ or ‘emotionality.’ It is only their higher flight. ‘Spirituality’ is the merging together of the intellect and the higher emotions; the emotions are spiritualized from the intellect.”

Remember: meeting a jaguar can change one’s way of looking at the world. And once we have met the jaguar, once we have understood that we “will do what we will do,” let’s remember the words from Ark’s journals:

So, let’s state the hypothesis. The only reasonable hypothesis that I can state is that one which comes from the unknown system taught by Gurdjieff. This system tells us that the world has a certain purpose. It tells us that not everything works well. It tells us that there are certain bugs in the construction.

It is quite possible that using the meta-language one can prove that any program on that scale must have bugs. So, the Universe is a program, a program which has bugs, but which has the built-in capacity for self-improving.

There are, therefore, certain units that are brought to existence with this specific purpose: to self-evolve to a degree high enough to be able to find out the methods of debugging.

So what do we do now? We debug the Universe, of course. Starting with our minds.